Allan R. Millett: The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning

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Notes

1. These include Xiaobing Li; Millett, Allan R.; and Bin Yu, trans. and ed. (2001) Mao's General's Remember Korea (Lawrence, Kansas: Kansas University Press).

2. E.g., Fehrenbach, T. R. (1991) This Kind of War: A Study In Unpreparedness (New York: Bantam Books), pp. 6–7. This is a reprint of an earlier edition (1963) (New York: Macmillan).

3. Among the most important are (1981) The Origins of the Korean War, vol. I Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes 1945–1947 (Princeton: Princeton University Press); and (1990) vol. II, The Roaring of the Cataract (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

4. MacDonald, Callum A. (1986) Korea: The War Before Vietnam (New York: The Free Press), pp. 10–12.

5. Hastings, Max (1987) The Korean War (New York: Touchstone Books), pp. 9–22.

6. Cumings (1990), especially pp. 237–290.

7. E.g., Wheeler, Wolcott (1998) “The 1948 Cheju-Do Civil War,” http://www.kim-soft.com/1997/43wh.htm, accessed December 22, 2007. See also Johnson, Chalmers (2000) Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Henry Holt and Company), pp. 99–100. The intellectual level and ideological tone of much of the vitriol directed at the U.S. is illustrated by Wheeler's gratuitous reference to American political scientist Samuel Huntington as “Mad Dog.”

8. Cumings, Bruce (March 14, 1998) “The Question of American Responsibility for the Suppression of the Cheju-Do Uprising,” paper presented at the 50^th Anniversary Conference of the April 3, 1948 Chejudo Rebellion, Tokyo, http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/cheju98.htm, accessed December 22, 2007. In fn. 4 Cumings cites a “Source to be supplied.” This reviewer has seen this paper reprinted on other websites, none of which ever identify this source.

9. An especially shrill example of this is Lee Wha Rang “James Hausman: The Ugly American in Korea?” http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/hausman.htm, accessed December 22, 2007. Some of the more sensational accusations seem to originate with Cumings, who lists his sources as three unnamed Thames Television employees who conducted an off-camera interview with Hausman in February 1987. See Cumings (1998), fn. 26.

10. E.g., Johnson, pp. 100–101.

11. For example, Cumings (1990), pp 265–266 reports that during the suppression of the Yosu mutiny in 1948 the commander of KMAG Brigadier General William L. Roberts “ordered [sic] [the South Korean general in the area] to ‘take strong positive measures to prevent executions and control National Police [abuses].’” He also notes that Hausman reported his concerns over revenge killings by the police for the slaying of their comrades by the rebels.

Cumings (1998), fn. 21 also notes that Captain Harold Fischgrund of KMAG was trying to remove all members of the rightist Northwest Youth Society removed form Cheju-do completely. Fischgrund was actively involved in the suppression of the rebels and appears several times in Millett's account.